I'm working on a Gateway 2.4GHz, originally 3GB ram...that blue screens with Windows XP...I tested the hard drive and according to it's own diagnistics was bad...so I replaced it with another SATA hard drive...and right after trying to load windows xp home it blue screens with the stop error 0x0000007B...I've tested the memory and the memory seems fine...i don't have another SATA hard drive I can try....What can I do to fix this?

also, if you know how, go into bios and check whether you're on AHCI or ATA for your sata port

(AHCI requires you load an extra driver from within the setup so it'd just be easier if it's set to ATA)(you can then switch back over to AHCI mode after you install using this guide http://www.blah-blah...-s/enable-ahci/)

edit: also, what gateway laptop is it, and did it have XP on it originally? i ask because I know for a fact that newer (aka if it had 7 installed originally, not sure about the vista models) gateway laptops (not just gateway for that matter) it's impossible to install XP and below on.

Now I'm able to get into Safe Mode and run scans for viruses...likes like it's injected big time..ran Malware Bytes came out ok....but acording to Avast its infected and I cant update it and drivers are missing...it looks like according to the logs that the user tried to remove infections on the same day....I can't access the cd-rom and it's not letting me download drivers although I can get online....I've tried creating a new user but it says the user doesn't exist in the specified domain...any ideas?

You could try downloading drivers with a different machine , then transfer them to a thumb drive or cd , and install them from there .P.S . You may want to see if there is a BIOS update for that particular machine , and flash the new if one is available .

The user of the laptop doesn't like the whole Winodws 2008 thing now that I finally got it on ....likes to use Internet Explorer and not Firefox or other browsers but it has so many security features...any ideas on how to not have those security features...don't know though about the install with XP like it had because it had kept giving a blue screen during the fresh install when it was about to "load Windows"....